


How the magpie caught the tiger

by SandraMorningstar



Series: M for... [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Meeting, Witty Dialogue, an offer he can't refuse, and a corpse, ex-soldier Moran, mormor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandraMorningstar/pseuds/SandraMorningstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian had been a soldier until he was declared unstable and unfit for duty.<br/>Back in London he struggles to keep a job and pay his rent...</p>
<p>... until he meets a certain James Moriarty.</p>
<p>An encounter that will forever change his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the magpie caught the tiger

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr dashboard decided to make me ship mormor - and succeeded.
> 
> So I wrote this short ficlet yesterday. Maybe I'll expand the story in the future...  
> There will certainly be more about those two coming up in some form. I ship them so much at the moment!
> 
> Enjoy and feel free to leave a comment.

Moran stomped into the apartment building, murder written on his face. He stalked right past his landlady, who had planned to remind him that he had to pay his rent (he was two month behind) but had a sudden change of mind upon seeing him.

“Bloody bastards!”, he shouted and slammed the door of his apartment shut. They’d fired him. They’d bloody fired him.

Must be the third job he lost during the last two months – or was it the fourth already? He wished himself back on the battlefield where those scrawny hipsters with their tablets who couldn’t lift a weight if their life depended on it and still thought they were better than him would die in a heartbeat.

Sighing he decided to spent the last of his saved money to pay the rent. It would take some time for him to find a new source of income and he didn’t intend to sleep under a bridge in the near future. Money in hand – he always paid cash – Sebastian made his way down the stairs and knocked on the landlady’s door.

To his surprise it swung open upon his touch, the landlady nowhere to be seen.

He considered leaving, but the familiar thrill of danger lured inside.

 

The hallway was dark but he could see that the living room was fully illuminated, which was definitely out of the ordinary. The landlady had given him hell once for leaving his light on the whole day. She’d never turn the lights on when it wasn’t even dark outside yet.

He snuck up to the door, arming himself with a heavy stone bust (dead ugly but a good weapon). With an intimidating warcry Sebastian jumped into the room, expecting a thief.

Instead he found himself eye to eye with an impeccably well-dressed young man, holding a bloody knife; the corpse of his landlady lying behind him. The man looked at him with one raised eyebrow, looking amused.

“Good grief”, he said. “If I’d known you were that intent on spending your rent money I’d just have waited.” The man chuckled silently.

Moran was confused. He lowered the bust and just stood awkwardly in the doorway. Unsure what to do.

“I thought you were a thief”, he finally said.

“Not today”, the man answered teasingly.

“You killed my landlady.”

“Excellent observation.” The man turned his back to him to wipe the knife clean on the shirt of the corpse, seemingly unconcerned that Sebastian might attack him.

“And I saw it”, Sebastian stated. Bracing himself because surely the murderer wouldn’t leave him to go and tell the tale. He was much too controlled for such a grave mistake.

“Well yes, but you’re not going to tell anyone”, the man said, sounding almost bored. He stood up again, Sebastian gripping the statuette he was still holding tighter. Ready to fight. The murderer shook his head as if Moran had just made a fool of himself. “Easy there, tiger. I’m not going to kill you.”

“Then how can you be sure I won’t tell the police what I saw?”, Sebastian asked, confused but not letting his guard down.

“Cause if you had any intent to do so you would have run and called the police yourself. Then I’d have had to kill you of course. Instead you stayed to have a nice little chat with your landlady’s murderer.”

It sounded extremely fucked up when he said it like this, Moran thought.

“Why’d you kill her?”, he asked.

“Someone paid me good money to do it”, the man explained lightly. “I assume that’s alright with you? I mean you can keep your rent now, right?”

That was the most twisted reasoning he’d heard in a while. But if he was perfectly honest: A part of him liked it.

“As long as I can keep my apartment, it’s fine.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but no. They are going to tear it down to build a mall.”

“Great, so I’ll be homeless in the near-future then”, he said gruffly.

“I’m sure you’ll find someplace else”, the murderer replied, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, cause everyone loves to have an ex-soldier living in their apartment who’s diagnosed as unstable and unable to keep a job”, he quipped sarcastically.

The other man’s eyebrows shot upwards. His face assuming an expression of interest.

“A soldier? Of course, I should’ve seen it. The way you stand and the hair – typical”, the man said, more to himself. He then went on to ask: “Did you like the killing?”

“What?” The question had caught Moran off guard. No one had ever asked him that and he’d never thought about it. He’d always just followed orders. It wasn’t a question of preference for him, but of loyalty.

The murderer rolled his eyes again in exasperation. “I asked you if you liked killing people”, he repeated, stretching the words like he was talking to a deaf person.

“It was what I was told to do”, Sebastian answered evasively.

“That’s not what I asked”, the other man reminded him, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I didn’t struggle as much as my colleagues with it. That’s all I can say.”

“Interesting. Would you be willing to do it again?”

Moran nodded. If they hadn’t declared him unfit for duty he’d still be on the battlefield instead of working his ass off at some dull minimum-wage job here.

“Would you be willing to kill for me?”, the man asked flat-out. “I’d pay you, of course.”

Sebastian hesitated. He should say no, because that was the sane thing to do.

“How much do you pay?”, he asked instead. Half stalling for time, half interested.

“Well, let me think … I charge five hundred thousand for a standard kill. That makes twenty-five hundred thousand for you, then.”

Sebastian nodded thoughtfully. Turning the idea over in his head.

“What if I get caught?”, he asked. He had no desire to spend the rest of his days in a prison cell.

“Only amateurs get caught”, the man said amused. “Are you an amateur?”

“Hardly”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about then. So, are you interested?”

“I might be…” Sebastian said, playing hard to get. In truth he’d already made up his mind. “Just one last thing. What’s your name?”

“Really?”, the man asked astounded, his calm mask slipping for a moment. “That’s what you want to know?”

“Yes”

The man sighed. “James Moriarty – if you must know.”

“Sebastian Moran”, he returned the favour.

“I know”, Moriarty simply said, walking past him. “Come along, then. We’ve got work to do.”


End file.
